say: “Let their wording stand, while believing that what is understood from it is not intended,” or, “Let their wording stand, while believing that Allah is not truly described by what it signifies.” In that case, they would not have been allowed to stand as they came, nor would it then be said, “Without specifying how,” for denying the manner of something that is not affirmed is meaningless talk.

Al-Athram in al-Sunnah, Abū ‘Abd Allāh ibn Battah in al-Ibānah, Abū ‘Amr al-Talamankī, and others narrated through an authentic chain of transmission the following response from ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Abī Salamah al-Mājishūn—one of the “three imams of Medina,” namely Mālik ibn Anas, Ibn al-Mājishūn, and Ibn Abī Dhi’b—when he was asked about what the Jahmiyyah denied:

“To proceed: I have understood your question concerning what the Jahmiyyah and their followers have followed one another in saying about the attributes of the Magnificent Lord. His greatness surpasses all description and contemplation; tongues fail to explain His attributes, and minds fall short of comprehending His power. His greatness has repelled the minds, leaving them no way forward, so they have returned humbled and exhausted. They were commanded only to observe and reflect upon what He has created in due measure. The question ‘How?’ is asked only about one who once did not exist and then came into being. As for Him who neither changes nor passes away, who has always existed and has no equal, none but He knows how He is.

“How can the measure of Him who had no beginning, who neither dies nor decays, be known? How could any of His attributes have a limit or an endpoint that anyone could know, or whose extent anyone describing Him could define? Yet He is the manifest Truth: no truth is truer than He, and nothing is more evident than He. The proof that minds are incapable of fully comprehending His attributes is their inability to fully comprehend